The Dante Club

During our Contemporary Fiction unit at the end of the year, we will be reading novels and writing responses to various prompts developed from quotes from the text.

You may choose to write a fictional, biographical, or autobiographical narrative, essay, or poem.

If you are not engaged by any prompt in particular, you are permitted to respond to another quote that may have leapt off the page to you or to reflect on something personal. There are some quotes without prompts; feel free to respond to them if you so desire. If you find yourself uninspired by any of the prompts and are unable to find a quote or topic about which to write on your own, you are welcome to go back to a previous section's prompts/quotes and choose from there as well. The goal is to write in response to some motif, theme, or emotion from your experience with the text.


Reading 1 (“Caution to the Reader” and pp. 1-17):

• Professor C. Lewis Watkins writes in the “Caution to the Reader” to “remember first that words can bleed.” Explore the power of words, in either positive or negative ways, or both. Or, write about a time in your life when words have made you bleed.
• When the woman who found the body was crying, it “prickled the hair” in the policeman’s ear. Write about a sound that has or would “prickle” the hair in your ear because of the underlying emotion.
• Mrs. Healey “made a wager with herself, and with God” when traveling back to her home. What types of events force us to make a wager with God?
• When Pearl is describing the eyes of the flies, he writes, “Copper: the swirl of fire.” Begin your writing with this line. What types of events might follow this opening?
• Fields tells Osgood, “The mind of our country is moving with the speed of a telegraph, and our great institutions are stagecoaching behind it.” How is this still true today?

Reading 2 (pp. 17-36):

• While Holmes is trying to overhear a conversation, he narrows “his eyes as though he could transfer their share of power to his ears.” Why is it we use different senses when we feel others are lacking?
• Fields tells Holmes, “I find myself at the helm of an enormous ship, my friends, that will drive upon the rocks if I do not watch it at all times.” What types of “ships” do we direct in our lives that require such close attention?
• When characterizing Lowell and Holmes’ friendship, Pearl writes that they “liked to sharpen their wits against each other.” Write about a friendship of yours that engages and challenges your intellect.
• The homeless man whispers the Italian equivalent of “You Who Enter” before committing suicide. Write a story that begins with these words.
• Lowell implores the president of the college to “imagine some man in public life today declaring his enemies’ places in Hell.” Many would argue this does happen in 2007. Why do you think public figures do this?
• Lowell thinks to himself that poetry “reduced to the essence of a single line the vague philosophy that floated in all men’s minds, so as to render it portable and useful, ready to the hand.” Do you agree with this statement? Why or why not?

Reading 3 (pp. 36-64):

• Pearl writes that medical school let Holmes explore “how nature operated when freed from superstition and fear.” How do our superstitions and fears still impact our interpretation of science? Of natural happenings?
• Pearl writes that “Lowell was the right antidote for his [Holmes’] nerves.” Write about a person in your life who is the antidote for you.
• Lowell speculates, “Longfellow wants to make sure of Heaven before committing himself to Hell.” Why do you think faith comes so easily to some while to others it requires continual evidence?
• Mrs. Healey questions, “Why must mistakes only be made up for afterwards? Can’t they sometimes be mended by what came before?” Explore this question.
• Rey thinks “he had to find some meaning for the words left hanging on the dead air.” Open a story with this line or write about a time when you had to find some meaning to words left unexplored.
• Pearl writes about Longfellow making sure to listen to the bedtime prayers of his daughters every night. Write about a daily routine your parents had with you when you were young.
• Longfellow says, “The blood and words must come out together.” Write about a time when words brought about metaphorical blood.
• Pearl writes about “the bright stars that inhabited Longfellow’s social constellation.” What stars inhabit yours?
• Lowell says, “Once they start throwing books in the fire, they shall put us all into an inferno we won’t escape soon.” Explore the damaging effects of censorship. What effects would it have on you or society as a whole?
• Lowell is afraid “to court unnecessary conflict.” Write about a time when you did just that. What made you do it? Did you regret it afterward?

Reading 4 (pp. 64-109):

• Dante writes, “Therefore it is good that I should arm myself with foresight.” Is it possible to do this? When? Why?
• Lowell speaks of the “music” of Dante’s voice. Write about someone in your life whose voice is “music” to you.
• Lowell tells his student that “sometimes in the middle of our lives, we all, each one of us, journey to face a Hell of our own.” What types of Hell do we create for ourselves? Is it possible to avoid it? Why or why not?
• Dante writes, “I found myself in a dark wood, for the correct path had been lost.” Write about a time in your life, or in the life of someone you know, who had to journey through a dark wood.
• Holmes tells his son that “it costs sweat, it cost nerve-fat…to do anything worth doing.” What goals in your life are you willing to sweat for? Why?
• Holmes maintains that Longfellow “acts on his beliefs, doesn’t just talk of them.” How important is this quality to be happy (or content) in life?
• As Talbot dies, he becomes enraged “that our condition could be such that one child of God could die while all others went on unbothered and unchanged.” This is one of the toughest challenges of faith. Why?
• “Mine was nourished in blood.” (p. 84) Write a story that begins with these words.
• “The pen felt like a sledgehammer in his hand. Difficult to wield nimbly, but what volatile power.” Create a simile or metaphor of your own that explores the power of language then write about a time when you used language to achieve your purpose.
• Longfellow looks out the window, and “all he could discern…was blackness.” Write a story that ends with this line.
• Lowell maintains that “he inherited his drop of black blood.” Do we inherit our temperaments or do we learn them? Explore the nature vs. nurture argument relative to mood.
• Longfellow fears writing his wife’s name because “she would merely become a word.” When we lose someone, what acts perpetuate his/her memory while others deplete it? Why?
• Holmes says, “Though a woman tempted man to eat…you never hear of Eve having to do with his drinking, for he took to that of his own notion.” Why do you think some people take the Bible literally while others read it metaphorically? How would one interpretation change the conclusions drawn?
• Pearl writes that “reputation and rumor could do in a gentleman far more efficiently than the hangman.” How is this still true today?

Reading 5 (pp. 110-126):

• Lowell complains that, in their analysis of Dante, they “gleefully murder his words.” How is this true of literary analysis?
• Pearl describes “the ancient beckoning of thunder.” Write a story in 100 words or less that begins with this line.
• Pearl reflects on Rey’s cultural position: being biracial places him outside any set culture. Does this still happen today? Why or why not?

Reading 6 (pp. 126-144):

• When the men come upon Talbot’s murder site, Pearl writes, “The place was at hand. It could be sensed and smelled.” Write a story about a place where the emotional traces can still be sensed well after the events have passed.
• Pearl writes Holmes “misspoken words had broken his own heart.” Write about a time when your regret over words evoked such feelings in your heart.
• Dante write of the Neutrals, who “had refused to follow a course of action in life.” When is making no choice at all worse than making the wrong one? Why?
• Kurtz tell Rey that “a touch of instinct is all we have sometimes. It fades with each disappointment in life and career.” Why do our instincts fade?

Reading 7 (pp. 144-163):

• “Every good battle needs a strong ally,” says Jennison. How is this true in our lives?
• Plato says of the citizens of Agrigentum that “these people build as if they were immortal and eat as if they were to die instantly.” How does our culture reflect this? Why do great civilizations do this?
• Pietro accuses Lowell, “You fight what does not come near your door.” Explore the tendency to show concern for issues well beyond our geographical locations while ignoring what is in our own backyards.

Reading 8 (pp. 164-183):

• Emerson tells Holmes “there is no peace for the sons of men.” How do the expectations of our parents influence our lives?
• Longfellow “repeated the words over and over again until they took on shape, had weight, could be embraced and sheltered like children.” Write about a time when you had to tell yourself something was truly happening to you or about a time when you had to keep telling yourself something in order to believe it true.

Reading 9 (pp. 183-203):

• Is the punishment of the Schismatics appropriate? Why or why not?
• Holmes tells Lowell that “revolutions are not made by men in spectacles, and the first whispers of a new truth are not caught by those in need of ear trumpets.” How does age influence our willingness for change? Why?

Reading 10 (pp. 203-222):

• The men walk “through a maze of rooms; down into a cold, pitch-dark stone tunnel.” Write a story that begins with these lines.
• Holmes tells the men “that the muscles with which we laugh and cry lie side by side.” What does this reveal about our moods?
• Lowell quotes, “He who has once been a drinker will drink again.” Is addiction genetic or learned? Argue your point.
• Longfellow reflects that at one point, “Dante laid down his pen – all that follows was still a blank. How shall it be filled up? What new figures shall be brought in? What new names written?” At the end of your high school career, all that follows is still a blank. Write about your expectations for college, or life. What new figures will come in to your life?

Reading 13 (p. 223-240)

• “Tickner seemed to taste the word as he might a new wine.” Write about the taste of words. How does their taste fit with their connotations? Their denotations?
• Ticknor asks Longfellow, “Why is it that if you kill one person you are a murderer but if you kill a thousand you are a hero?” Explore this question.
• Lowell believes that “joy and sorrow were sisters.” Why is it we cannot have joy without sorrow?
• Longfellow reflects that “Fanny had never left a room without leaving him with the feeling that something of the light went with her.” Write about someone you know whose presence is so strong that once he/she leaves, some part of the room seems to be missing.
• Longfellow tells his daughter that “only in coming through the darkest moments, sometimes, is light found.” How is this true? Why?
• Dante once said the woman he loved “excited such feelings in him that he could not find any words to describe them.” What types of emotion elicits such responses that we lack the words? How does our emotional state impact our ability to articulate ourselves?

Reading 14 (pp. 240-281)

• “Bill Ticknor always said people like the feel of gold in their hands.” How does monetary greed influence the world? Explore the nature of greed.
• Holmes ventures that human design is “roundly defective.” What are our defects? Are they a product of evolution or design?
• Holmes questions, “Could not there be a crime that was not a sin?” Are all crimes sins? Explore the societal view of crime and the religious view of sin. Do they always go hand in hand?
• “I don’t believe in them [superstitions], but I fear them, nevertheless.” How do our superstitions mold us as a culture and as a society? Will superstition ever completely abate?
• Lowell believes “that the way to Heaven was not outside the world but through it.” Do you agree? Why or why not?
• Lowell tells Holmes that “some people seem always in the shadow.” Explore the tendency of some to wallow in the shadow.
• Lowell argues, “What begins as a taste becomes a religion.” Explore the nature of passion.

Reading 15 (pp. 281-300):

• “The stars are on our sides tonight.” Begin a story with these words.
• Governor Andrew thinks “all time had been separated into two epochs: before the war and after the war.” Every generation seems to have some defining moment such as this, most recently with 9/11. How do you think the world has changed since then?
• Lowell tells Holmes, “We never like the smell of our vices in other people.” Why is it people cannot stand to see their own weaknesses in others?
• Lowell tells of his first true love, “one of those clear faces where every shade of feeling floats across like the shadow of a cloud across the grass.” Write about someone you know who wears his or her feelings so clearly, or write about the first person who elicited such passion in you.
• “There is only one way to go with flirtatious women…and that is to run.” Is this true? Why?

Reading 16 (pp. 300-319):

• Wendell Junior, in his resentment toward his father, thinks, “Did one want to spread his reputation so indiscriminately wide that worms of me…could judge you?”
• “The wide-open sky showed off a moon so precisely halved that it appeared to have been sliced by a freshly honed blade.” Write a story that ends with this line.
• Bachi accuses the Dante Club of being “damned literary pirates.” How much of literature, or any media for that matter, is truly original? Why?

Reading 17 (pp. 319-335):

• “This shines light into the landscape of his mind.” Choose a figure from history or modern figure whose actions or words challenge your understanding. Shine light into the landscape of his or her mind.
• Longfellow tells Holmes, “A great part of the happiness of life consists not in fighting battles…but in avoiding them.” Explore what he means by this.
• While reflecting about his son, Holmes supposes, “The second edition improves on the first.” Do generations improve upon the previous? Why or why not?

Reading 18 (pp. 336-367):

• “The whole world was battling and raging against itself.” Many people argue this is taking place today. Do you agree? Why or why not?
• Fanny Longfellow once told her husband, “for men, all that makes a soldier is the gay dress…forgetting the weapons of murder that the dress conceals.” Why is killing in battle viewed so differently on a moral basis?
• “It was raining now, a night rain; a gentle, Christian rain.” Write a story that ends with this line.
• Longfellow escapes the losses of his life by translating Dante. What times in your life has literature, or any medium, provided a refuge? Why?
• Pearl uses historical facts to create a fictitious killing spree, yet there have been crimes carried out in the name of some sort of medium (e.g. film, literature, television, music, etc.). Is the work of art to blame? The artist? Why or why not?